How to Become a More Interesting Person

We tend to evaluate people on how interesting they are. But we are thereby liable to miss a more acute and relevant issue: how interesting does a given person make us feel? Why in the company of some do our minds quickly fill with stories, while around others, we experience ourselves as blank, dull and close to inert?

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“We start with an unusual observation: there is a huge variance in how much we feel we have to say for ourselves around some people compared to around others; certain people make us feel boring, others do not. We tend to evaluate people on how interesting they are. But we are thereby liable to miss a more acute and relevant issue: how interesting does a given person make us feel? Why in the company of some do our minds quickly fill with stories, while around others, we experience ourselves as blank, dull and close to inert. Why – when some people ask – ‘so what have you been up to lately?’ do we positively brim with a multitude of topics, whereas with others, outwardly equally polite, do we struggle to remember that we have ever even existed?..."

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CREDITS

Produced in collaboration with:

Deanca Rensyta

Title animation produced in collaboration with:

Graeme Probert

[xhv]

"people can meet you as deeply as they have met themselves"

[jdngo]

i've hears this from someone "in order to be a good storyteller, you have to have stories to tell". so do journal, jot down your days, your emotions, your thoughts etc

[Mackcolak-xfbk]

Here are some key takeaways from the Video:

1. There is a large variance in how much we feel we have to say about ourselves depending on who we are talking to. Some people make us feel boring, while others draw out our stories and observations.

2. This happens because our unconscious minds are continuously evaluating how much the other person understands, appreciates, and can accept about what we are saying. Based on this, we conclude how much of ourselves we can safely reveal.

3. People who make us feel we have a lot to say open many rooms in their own minds. They have explored complex, sad, dark, or potentially shameful parts of themselves. By being at ease with these things internally, they signal they will be at ease hearing about those things from others as well.

4. We can become more interesting to others by traveling widely within our own psyches, opening doors to parts of ourselves we usually keep hidden. This shows others we will be a safe, receptive audience for their observations and stories too.

5. By saying a lot to ourselves internally, we ready ourselves to have much to say in conversation with others. Self-examination builds capacity for intimacy.

[BruceHurley]

I had a friend who would regularly respond to people asking how he's doing by saying "Do you really want to know or are you just asking?" While that's a very overt and confrontational way of asking, it's a question we all ask in one way or another. If we believe a person really cares, we will open up more. If we think they're just asking to be polite, we will close off. By the way, some people would answer my friend by saying that they're just asking. I thought that was an interesting outcome.

[WovenPsychology]

Anyone else find these kinds of safe people rare in their usual social settings? Work, school, etc. Everyone seems to be so caught up in their own issues to hold space for another. I suppose we can start by being available to ourselves.

[illbebcak]

My key to being interesting in is to be curious, to listen, and to be open-minded.

[RoseRoseRoseRoseRoseRose]

I had an adventurous life with a lot of emotional roller-coaster trips and now I'm in the beginning of my 30s and I really love and appreciate boredom and calmness. I indeed see a beauty in those because we live in a toxic, fast life world with too much aggressive overstimulation. It's a wonderful gift to have spare time for being able to being lazy and doing nothing. 😌♥️

[nmdruyd]

People tend to open up to me, but they rarely listen to what I have to say. I feel like 'interesting' people are those who have cool stories to tell. People like me are just like a soft couch for people to sit on.

[lagerhausjonny]

The animation in this is just absolutely incredible. So simple yet so meaningful, cute and heartwarming. Truly amazing, hats of to the people involving in bringing this video to life.

[myrtila]

I was literally thinking about this this morning before watching the video. There are certain people with whom I feel safe to share my weirdness, my shameful feelings, my lows. And there are others who make it feel painful talking to them. With the latter people it feels like what I have to say is never interesting enough. Never good enough to catch their attention. They really make me feel like a shell of person. They are the people you feel like you have to go to a big fancy vacation or have something extraordinary happen to you, in order to have their respect.
I try to avoid these people as much as possible

[SylvesterAshcroft]

The Midnight Library is an interesting book, that covers broadly a lot of the same topics covered in this video, introspection, self analysis, but most of all self acceptance...being accept our own flaws, and move on from them, so that we can become better for it.

[franchic]

A question I like to often ask people (at work or socially) is "What's your biggest challenge right now?". They always are keen to answer and then also seem more interested in continuing the conversation.

[wmfvspx]

Some people you met just immediately feel safe to you. Can't even pinpoint why? Just instinctive feeling I can rely on, and I'm seldom wrong.
I don't think we will ever treat or engage with everybody the same way. Because different people just make us respond differently and the same happen to them the other way round.

[anti_acido]

when i was 14 i met my friend who talked about things in this over detailed but not boring way, and i loved that and started doing as well. anything could be a topic of interest if you talk about it in a smart and curt way. then i met another friend who years later told me she started talking like that because i talk like that. i wonder if this has influenced more people.

nowadays i often see people pointing out little things in this whimsical manner that is neither boring neither annoying but only on the internet, like tweets, tiktok videos, etc and never in real life. idk if all the people i met in real life are just really fond of small talk or if im too unapproachable or if you gotta build trust first

[assignmentspaghetti]

Best of luck.
There's a fine line between "interesting" and "weird" and there's not much I can express of myself without looking weird.

[pedrostormrage]

3:21 "What they have felt safe exploring in themselves, we will be able to safely unpack around them" That is true, but there's a "game theory" problem here in that no one wants to be the first in a group to show vulnerability that way (since they don't know if they're unpacking something they will be rejected for). In turn, that makes us all cautious of each other, making it harder to make meaningful connections with people.

[nias]

Thank you. That encourages me to continue introspection. Sometimes I get too much absorbed by my own struggles and cannot really listen to others. A diary seems to be a good way for me to lay my problems aside. When I'm asked how I am, I try to be honest, but I don't want to pull the other person in the hole I am in. This is why I might seem a bit reserved. Greetings:)

[danielleach]

Seems the point is to know thyself. Being interesting isn't so much aout marching to a different drummer, it's more about not falling prey to the Siren"s song and being awake enough to speak and listen well.

[bruceleroyhoffman]

It just happens that people generally are interested in whole other things and topics than those inspiring me.

[ikecreason]

Concise key takeaways:

1. The more receptive someone is as determined by your subliminal judgments, the more readily you will disclose and dispense the authentic feelings and ideas you keep to yourself so often.
2. As it goes with the general idea that one must love oneself to availably love others one must engage in deep and consistent introspection, and be well-versed in all domains of personal emotions and experiences to connect to others in a charismatic way.